


empathy

by Lies_Unfurl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels, Anger, Coda, Communication Failure, Crying, Episode: s13e18 Bring 'em Back Alive, Healing, Hurt Dean Winchester, M/M, Post-Episode: s13e18 Bring 'em Back Alive, Season/Series 13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 00:30:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14320494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lies_Unfurl/pseuds/Lies_Unfurl
Summary: Post 13.18: Dean and Cas talk. Sort of.





	empathy

“Fuck off,” Dean snaps when his door slams open, probably leaving a crack in the wall. It was locked before, which means it must be Cas, since Sam didn’t seem pissed enough to bother with breaking and entering.

He doesn’t bother turning around to confirm, though. Just stares at the red streaks on the wall that he’s punched at least five times – he lost count.

He hears footsteps, and a moment later Cas’s hand is on his shoulder, right where his scar used to be, and then Cas jerks him around so that they’re facing each other.

Before Dean can swear again, two fingers are pressed against his forehead and a familiar tingling rushes through his body, leaving behind the sort of cool sensation that he gets after chewing mint gum. His shoulder knits back together. He can’t feel the blisters that 24 hours of walking left on his feet, and the throbbing headache that’s been his best buddy since he fell face-first into the snow has vanished. Even the scrapes on his knuckles mend, like the last ten minutes spent breaking the skin, making pain for him to feel, meant nothing.

He jerks out of Castiel’s grip. “I didn’t ask you to heal me.”

“I’m aware,” Castiel replies, as much vehemence in his tone as there is in Dean’s. “Like it or not, you’re still my charge. I won’t have you suffer when I can easily fix it.”

“Well, I’m fixed now.” He storms to the end of the room, needing to move though there’s nowhere else to go. “You can leave.”

“You’re upset with me,” Cas says instead, staying exactly where he is.

“I’m upset at a lotta things. You ain’t special.”

“I would never make the mistake of thinking that I am.” Sarcasm and something bitter drip from Cas’s words, but that’s not Dean’s fucking problem, is it? 

“I need you to understand that I care about your mother and about Jack. I do, and we will find them.” He takes a step towards Dean. “I won’t apologize for my actions, but I’m sorry for the distress they’ve caused you.”

“Shoulda thought about that before you juiced up Gabriel.” 

Castiel’s jaw tightens, but his voice is level when he says, “I don’t expect you to understand.”

“Yeah? I don’t expect you to understand what it feels like to know that your mom is trapped in a fucking alternate dimension where angels want her dead. Jack will make it back. We don’t even know if he can be killed. But if she dies? Know where she’s going to go? Probably to their Heaven. So she’s fucking gone. Forever.” He blinks back tears, damned if he’s gonna cry in front of Cas.

“You’re right,” Cas says softly. “I don’t know. I can’t imagine.”

“No shit. If you had, you wouldn’t have used up the one ingredient we needed to try again.”

Emotions flash across Cas’s face, and he takes a step towards Dean. Dean tenses, but then Cas backs away, takes a deep breath, and sits down on Dean’s bed.

It’s… disarming, to say the least. He and Cas are close enough to the same height that he isn’t used to the angel looking up at him like this.

“I don’t expect you to understand,” Cas repeats, “what it’s like to have your grace stolen. You’ve been through so much more than most humans, but you have no conception, not a single frame of reference, what it feels like for another being to tap into your… your essence, and take it. To feel a needle piercing your skin, and then to feel yourself less. It isn’t like someone cutting off a finger, or even an arm. The closest analogy, I suppose, would be how it feels to have someone touch your soul, and then rip out a piece.”

He pauses, but Dean doesn’t know what to say, and so: “I’ve had it done to me. And I’ve stolen grace from my siblings and regretted every single moment that I had it inside me; it corroded me and I let it, because I knew I deserved it for what I had done to them. If I can spare a single one of my siblings a second of that agony, I will.”

Quieter, he says, “It has to be freely taken, Dean. Lucifer deserves to have his grace stripped from him. Gabriel doesn’t. We’d be no better than Asmodeus if we kept it from him.”

And doesn’t that hurt, doesn’t that just hit Dean deep. He knows he’s no better than a demon, worst than most, even; knew it long before he took the Mark, ever since he wrapped his fingers round the cold hilt of Alastair’s razor. But for Cas to acknowledge it?

He digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Cas rises, still speaking softly. “You didn’t know. Be upset. Be mad at me, if it helps. But know that we _will_ get them home. I’ll travel to a dozen more warzones if I have to. I’ll take down Lucifer. I promise.”

“I’m not mad,” Dean chokes out, tears soaking into his hands. He knows Cas is standing in front of him, and isn’t surprised to feel a hand on his shoulder a moment later.

For a moment he wants nothing more than to lean forward, to rest his head on Castiel’s shoulder and let Cas hold him up, like he knows he would. Cas healed him, but he still hurts somewhere deep inside his bones.

 

He knows he can’t.

 

Summoning up the last of his willpower, Dean straightens, gently shrugs off Castiel’s hand, and gives him a watery smile that hopefully looks sincere. “Sorry. Haven’t lain down since a tentacle monster tried to bang me.”

Dean is well aware that Cas is well aware that he’s lying. But he just nods. “You should rest. Get in bed.”

He’s still in his jeans and flannel, but they’ve dried out, and he really is too tired to care. He practically falls onto his bed, barely finding the strength to crawl underneath the covers.

Cas hovers above him, and Dean has this crazy thought of him sitting on the bed, or even lying down, a comforting, solid presence to remind him what’s real in this fucked-up life where worlds change and nothing seems to stay dead. He almost asks Cas to stay.

Cas reaches down, absentmindedly brushing hair from Dean’s forehead with his two fingers. “Rest. You’ve earned it.”

Before Dean can think of an answer, Cas is pushing him softly away from the waking world. The last thing he hears before he’s gone is Cas’s voice murmuring, “Sleep well, Dean.” 

And he does.

**Author's Note:**

> rebagel [ here ](https://lies-unfurl.tumblr.com/post/172941413228/318-coda-empathy), if you want.


End file.
